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An article I wrote yesterday, which I viewed as non-controversial, got some people stirred up. I wonder if people actually read my words, or if my writing was so far off that I failed to get my intended message to readers.

In any case, I guess it’s good to get comments, although several took me by surprise. I tried to express that we as parents are all different. In my early years as a swim parent and board member, I had expected everyone to be as enthusiastic as I was about being a swim parent and our team. Obviously, there are all sorts of parents and flavors and degrees of interest kids and families have. A few comments I heard from other swim parents years ago took me by surprise. I hadn’t realized how these friends viewed swimming much differently than me.

Throughout the years, we’ve had several different coaches. Some relied heavily on parents involvement and others liked to handle things without parents chipping in. Neither approach is right or wrong. And as parents, we had to figure out what level of our involvement was desired. As the kids got older, we helped out less and less. Yes, we fulfilled our obligations but being a board member or running swim meets no longer was required or desired. We weren’t on deck for every practice anymore but went for long walks during the kids’ practices. Talking to my son, he said he liked it when we were involved. That made me feel appreciated and good about the years we volunteered.

In any case, it was a pleasure and joy to be a swim parent, through the ups and downs. I don’t regret any days of it. I developed so many great friendships that will continue long after our swim parenting days are over.

There I’ve said it. My daughter’s last meet is days away. It’s her senior year and her final meet will be the PAC 12 conference meet in Federal Way, WA. I’m kind of jumbled up on how I feel about it. I love being a swim mom and I find myself looking back on little moments with nostalgia and sadness. I will miss going to her meets.

My husband and I were browsing through the App called Meet Mobile this morning looking at different conference results from local schools where our children’s friends are swimming like UCSB and UCSD. I realized that I know a couple of the seniors’ names, but other than that there aren’t a whole lot of swimmers I recognize.

The past few years haven’t been all rosy. After a great freshman year, she got a high ankle sprain chasing after Trax, the public transportation train in Salt Lake City. That meant she couldn’t push off the walls for weeks during long course season and didn’t get her Olympic Trial cut. I think that was a devastating blow to her at the time, although it doesn’t seem like such a big deal now.

Then at last year’s PAC 12s, she got the flu. A really bad flu where the coaches didn’t let her swim or even out of her room until the final day of the meet. It was decidedly weird sitting in the stands for PAC 12s and not having a participant in the meet. Her last and only event she gave it everything she had. I was so nervous I thought I’d faint. I wasn’t sure if she was going to survive that mile-long race, but she did. Her coach said it was a “heroic swim” and he was so proud of her. It was close to a best time.

This year she’s been fighting through a bad shoulder injury. I worry if it was because she started swimming so young, so intensely or for so many years? What should I have done differently as a swim parent? Make her stop? Let her take time off?

She will take time off this year. But what I’m hoping for is next year, after my surgery and I’ve healed, that she will swim with me at a Masters meet–so I can be a swimmer and a swim mom all in one day.

My daughter’s coaches and teammates cheering for her during the 1650 at last year’s PAC 12s.

I’m thrilled that my two kids have grown into adults that truly like each other. It didn’t always work that way. There were jealousies, fights, and sometimes things got physical. Now that they’re in their early adulthoods, you can’t imagine how thrilled I was to hear my daughter say she and her brother talk for hours on the phone at night.

I remember when they were very young during summers at the beach, my son’s line to meet new people was to drag his sister across the sand and say, “You wanna meet my sister?” like that was the most outstanding experience anyone could wish for. When my daughter was interviewing for a coveted spot in our Catholic kindergarten she said over and over, “I’m Robert’s sister!”

They played countless hours together when we spent a couple months each summer at the beach. We had friends come and meet us and as the years went by they formed friendships through the swim team, both our home club in Palm Springs and the one in Orange County they dropped in on during vacations. But, mostly it was the two of them together to keep each other company. They’re as different as can be, but have that shared experience of being siblings.

My and my big brother.

At one time in my life, my big brother was the most important person in my life. I was closer to him than my mom and dad—or best friend. In the mornings getting ready for school, we shared a bathroom counter space and a sink outside our bedroom doors. I would ask his opinion on my school outfit and would change several times until I could find something suitable to wear, with his stamp of approval. I looked up to him and when he was in high school and suffered an injury losing part of a finger during his summer job at our local pea factory, I cried for days on end. I felt it was the end of the world.

Throughout our adulthood, having spouses, children a decade apart in ages, and living a few states away, our relationship has almost ceased. I stop by to visit on my trips back home. But the busy years of work, raising kids, and being a swim mom make the trips infrequent. I don’t think we’ll ever have that special relationship as siblings back. But when I see him, I still feel the bond that we had for those years growing up together with our own Mom and Dad that no one else had.

One of my favorite summers at the beach.

What special bond do you have with your siblings? How do you keep your relationships going throughout busy lives?

Here’s an article I wrote several years ago about sports specialization. I still get asked at what age should kids do one sport exclusively. There’s no right or wrong answer, although research suggests that there’s no advantage to early sports specialization.

There’s been a few conversations on the pool deck about when and if kids should swim exclusively. It’s a fact that our country’s sports have changed dramatically since we were kids. Sports were mostly free and school-based. Plus, kids didn’t do just one sport, but many.

Today, there’s a trend around the world for kids to specialize at an early age in one sport. If you “google” sports specialization, you’ll find tons of articles with research telling you why this is such an awful thing.

The drawbacks, according to research, come down to several things:
social isolation, burn-out and repetitive use injuries. Also, the research cited states there’s no clear advantage to starting in a single sport, year-round at an early age.

As the parent of two swimmers, I’ve sat on the pool deck for close to 15 years. My son started swimming at age 7, my daughter at 5. They began with a number of other activities, but loved swimming more. Their specialization was self-directed, not parent-coerced. They soon grew weary of rushing from practice to practice, or as I remember it, “If this is Tuesday it must be Karate.”

I have an opinion on sports specialization that relies on mom-based research — observing, listening and talking to hundreds of kids, parents, and dozens of coaches for years — however, it’s limited to the sport of swimming.

First, I have to disagree with this statement: “Being on a select team often requires a year-round or near year-round commitment and extensive travel. If you allow your child to participate she can end up socially isolated from her family, peers, and the larger community.[3]” from momsteam.

Isolation? Not hardly.

The swim team for my kids was social. Friendships blossomed with kids they’d otherwise never meet. Vacations through the years meant jumping in as a visitor with local teams and meeting more kids. At first my children were wary and out of their comfort zone, but their self-confidence and world grew exponentially.

Swim meets meant playing cards, “Catchphrase” and charades for hours under the tent with teammates — and racing for a minute or two. My daughter didn’t have time to hang out at the mall, but she did travel to Puerto Vallarta with kids from throughout So Cal to meet up with kids from the Pacific Northwest, Northern California, Mexico and Canada.

The coaches from the Puerto Vallarta trip witnessed an eye-opening swim meet for our swimmers. Our kids experienced another culture, interacted with local kids, and learned to appreciate small things they took for granted in Southern California.

I’d love to hear what you have to say about this topic, too! When did your kids begin organized sports? Did they participate in more than one? At what age did they specialize?

The first day of Lent, I almost made it without Facebook. Actually, my only mistake was first thing in the morning. It’s my habit to check a few news websites on my phone and then look at FaceBook before I start work.

I automatically opened up FB and then stopped myself. Oops. It’s Lent! I quickly clicked out of it and haven’t been tempted to see what my FB friends are posting since. When I’m at the PAC 12 Swimming Championships, I’ll want to see what my daughter’s team is posting. I’ll miss all the fun pictures that will be shared by the kids and parents, too. Rest assured they will all be there after Easter and I can check them out then.

I went to noon Ash Wednesday service at St. Theresa’s and it was short and sweet–less than half an hour. The pastor said it was his “quick get back to work service.” He had a few ideas to make Lent more meaningful. He said the objective is to become a different person than when you started the 40 days and 40 nights Lenten season.

He said we should break Lent into weeks and gave the following suggestions:

WEEK ONE
Spend time alone and listen to the Lord. Give yourself 15 to 30 minutes all to yourself each day to reflect and meditate.

WEEK TWO
Reflect on the Lord’s Prayer daily and think about how it relates to you. Also, create your own prayer.

WEEK THREE
Give something away. Give a gift that you’ve been meaning to give. Give something you own away to someone, who could even be an enemy.

WEEK FOUR
Volunteer in the community. Find an organization and give your service to others.

WEEK FIVE UNTIL EASTER
Look in the mirror and observe and reflect on how you have changed as a person through this Lenten season.

I think that’s an interesting suggestion and helpful to have some structure and do things like giving back to our community rather than “I’m giving up chocolate.” When my daughter was in grade school she’d say, “I”m giving up piano lessons for Lent.” She hated piano and admonishes me today for making her stick with it way beyond what was useful to me or her! In contrast, my son loved it and took lessons from age five through his senior year of high school and should probably still be taking lessons today! It’s funny how different personalities are, isn’t it?

This was one of my first blog posts. This is also one of the pieces that I wrote about how positive swimming has been for me, my husband and kids. I hope you enjoy it!

One of the most important things they learned is perseverance. That stick-with-it never give up attitude that is ingrained in their brains after years of trying for swim goals and just missing them. Then trying and trying again and again until they make them. The very nature of swimming 50 weeks a year, six days a week, makes kids tough.

I’ll never forget my daughter’s frustration of missing her junior national cut by fractions of a second for two years. She didn’t give up. She worked hard. She would still miss.

“Are you kidding me!” She said looking at the scoreboard to see her missing the coveted junior national cut by mere tenths of a second after dropping three full seconds on an 800-meter freestyle race.

The next race, she said, “I’m so done with this!” She dove in with more determination than ever, and yes, she made her cut, dropping seconds on her 200-meter free and coming in second place to one of the fastest girls in the country.

So, what does all this have to do with life? Take her hardest class, AP Stats. She knows that she can do it. She just has to put in the work and time. That may mean getting up and into the classroom at 6 a.m. for extra help, rather than staying warm tucked into her bed. But, she does it — all on her own — without me suggesting it. Her teacher told me, “I know that she will do whatever it takes to be successful, so I am not worried about where her grade is today.”

My son also swam. He worked so hard for every goal, trying to qualify for meets through ten years of year-round swimming. I’ll never forget his determination as an 8th grader. I was a chaperone for his Washington DC trip with his class. He knew he’d be missing too much swimming, so he would run up and down through the Mall, up and down the steps to the Lincoln Memorial, while everyone else strolled. At night in the hotel, he ran the gray cement staircases, up and down the five flights.

When he returned to the pool, he did it! He made his first Junior Olympic time.

Now he’s in college and he knows how to persevere. He wanted to work at the campus radio station. He put in his application as a freshman and was declined. As a junior he has been assigned a time slot on the FM station, moving up from his prior show on the AM.

He wanted to be in the College of Creative Studies, “a graduate school for undergraduates.” He applied and was devastated when he was declined. I told him to move on, it was okay, get a ‘normal’ degree. But, he didn’t give up. The next year he applied again and was accepted. Learn more about the UCSB CCS program here. Just click.

I’ve had friends ask why my kids spend so much time in the pool, aren’t they missing out?

I beg to differ. Spending most of their lives in the water has served them well. Being mostly wet has given them skills for life.

Photo credits: The Palm Springs, CA Pool — one of the most beautiful views while swimming ever. My daughter diving wearing the yellow cap. Yellow-capped swimmers sometime at some club meet. And a great meme for a distance swimmer.

I was afraid I was going to have tears streaming down my cheeks. I forgot to bring tissues and I was feeling apprehension, anxiety, sadness and nostalgic all at once. It was the morning of my daughter’s last college home meet on “Senior Day” and the senior girls who gritted it out for four years of being D1 student-athletes were going to be recognized.

We moms of senior girls have been texting and emailing the past month or two planning ways to make this day extra special. I think that was one of way preparing ourselves for the end of our swim mom careers.

When we were at the airport leaving home, I was told the flight was overbooked and I was the one selected to be bumped. I couldn’t believe it. This was the second time in a row I got the lucky ticket! I showed the agent that I had purchased our tickets August 1st–more than six months prior! And paid full price! And was in their frequent flier plan. They said they were sorry, but the computer picked me to be “bumped” and they’d try to get someone to give up their seat. This was way too stressful for me and I think I cried more tears at the airport than any other time throughout the weekend. From kindergarten to her senior year in college, my daughter had worked hard at swimming and I was going to miss her final dual meet? Fortunately, someone took a $600 coupon, gave up their seat, and I made it to Utah.

Back to the morning before the last dual meet, I battled with getting my leg brace on. It took me three tries to get it on the right way and then I worried about being late for the short ceremony that was going to proceed the meet. I snapped at my husband and realized that I was feeling stressed over one of these “milestone occasions.” I wanted everything to be perfect.

On the drive to the pool, I settled down. I realized we weren’t going to be late and I began to think of great memories swimming has given our family throughout the years. It was my daughter’s birthday weekend and I recalled since she was a little girl, her birthday always fell on a swim meet. I remembered when she was 13, one of the “hot” fast swimmer boys told her “Happy birthday!” at the meet. After that, she was known as the “girl who so-and-so said happy birthday to.”

The ceremony went off without a hitch. I didn’t cry but thoroughly enjoyed every moment with the other senior parents. The girls routed their opponents who have been fierce rivals and just happens to be my alma mater’s number one rival. My daughter swam her last 1,000 of her collegiate career and did so well, especially since she’s been fighting an injury all season. Afterwards, we parents were on the pool deck giving hugs, taking photos and sharing memories from their college days. We got together for dinner, joined by our dear friends who live nearby and have welcomed our daughter into their home for four years. No one can believe how quickly these years flew by.

I didn’t cry like I thought I would. I have a sneaking suspicion it’s because there’s one more meet to go, PAC 12s, their conference meet. I don’t think I’ll escape the tears then.